They were
probably hucksters from the Moorish market in Gibraltar, where they had
given their geese and turkeys the holiday they were taking themselves.
They were handsome men, tall and vigorous, but they did not win me to
sympathy with their architecture or religion, and I am not sure but, if
there had been any concerted movement against them on the landing at
Algeciras, I should have joined in driving them out of Spain. As it was
I made as much Africa as I could of them in defect of crossing to
Tangier, which we had firmly meant to do, but which we forbore doing
till the plague had ceased to rage there. By this time the boat which
touched at Tangier on the way to Cadiz stopped going to Cadiz, and if we
could not go to Cadiz we did not care for going to Tangier. It was
something like this, if not quite like it, and it ended in our seeing
Africa only from the southernmost verge of Europe at Tarifa. At that
little distance across it looked dazzlingly white, like the cotton
vestments of those Moorish marketmen, but probably would have been no
cleaner on closer approach.
III
As a matter of fact, we were very near not going even to Tarifa, though
we had promised ourselves going from the first.
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